Age - 23Rating - 2471
Style - Calculating
Amon Simutowe will very likely be the only Zambian player in the United States Chess League. He took the chess world by storm when he came in 2nd place in the 2000 World Junior Championship. This was a huge shock to the chess community as Simutowe came into the event ranked 42nd! For such a low ranked player to achieve such a remarkable success may make his result the most surprising result in the history of the World Junior Championship. Of course Amon is no longer so "low ranked", as he jumped from 2250-2470 FIDE in almost no time. Since then he has also scored two GM norms and is just one norm away from the Grandmaster title.
Simutowe is also a celebrity in his home country of Zambia. His results in the year 2000 were so impressive that he was named the Zambian sportsman of the year! Amon plays with a lot of confidence and truly fears no opponent. He is a great calculator and tactician, and you can feel his natural talent when you play against him. Simutowe never had so many training opportunities as he was the strongest player in his country by a large margin, at a very young age. However now that he is surrounded by strong players at the University of Texas Dallas, one can expect to see great strides in his game as he makes that push for the GM title. With the possibility of Dallas fielding such a dangerous IM on board 3, they should be a very fearsome team.